Okay, I know I have been horribly bad about updating. To make up for it, how about one big massive update? Yes?  

Our little daughter has grown up so much. She went from a 6 pound skinny newborn to an 18 pound pudgy opinionated baby (she is 8 and a half months old now.) She mainly prefers to stand, and is about a head above my knees now (knee high to a grasshoppah!) She has super long legs and has been wearing 9-12 month pants for almost two months now. She hasn’t started solid foods yet; she has only breast milk and is gaining weight well (just look at those pudgy legs!)  

Bella pretty much has her own schedule. We try not to force anything. If she wants to sleep in, we let her. If she wants to nurse, I nurse her. She does keep a fairly consistent schedule though.  She usually goes to bed around 10pm and sleeps most of the night, waking at around 6 to nurse and goes back to sleep until around 8:30. I am a little hazy on how often she wakes up because she sleeps next to me and I hardly wake up to feed her. :)  

There are two ways that Bella likes falling asleep. One, nursing. Two, something I like to call The Daddy Dance. Adrian will hold her in his arms and walk-bounce-lunge around the house a few times. I’ve tried to duplicate it, but The Momma Dance isn’t quite as successful. :) Which is okay with me, because I can nurse her to sleep. 

She is so sweet when she sleeps. Even then she has strict preferences. She prefers to sleep with her arms stretched way out, and if she touches anything, she gets fidgity until that something is moved (usually me.) And when she isn’t all stretched out, she wants to sleep with her face upturned into my pillow. Not enough to where her nose is covered. Just her eyes. And she arches her back in a way that she is still mostly laying flat on her back, with just her face turned up. It is so cute. 

 About a week ago, Bella got her first tooth. AND started crawling at the same time. She is very deliberate with her crawling. She picks up her hands and places them very carefully and matter-of-factly (factly? is that even a word?) When she is on all fours, she likes to look under her belly with the top her head rested on the ground to look back at her feet. She loves standing and walking while you hold her hands. I think if she could, she’d prefer to get around by hopping everywhere. When you stand her up, she immediately starts hopping. If you walk with her, she’ll hop the whole way. She is so awesome.  

Bella LOVES outside. She loves going on walks. Any time she is upset, bored, or sad, we can take her outside and it calms her immediately. She loves looking at the flowers, the squirrels, trees, and grass. About a week ago, she got to experience playing in the grass. She loved running her hands over the grass and pulling up little fistfuls of grass (which promptly went into her mouth.) 

 Everything about her is so cute and amazing to me. The way she chews on her bottom lip, how she sings herself to sleep during The Daddy Dance, when she pulls off her sock and eats it before I can get the other one on, her adorable little laugh,  the way she buries her face in my shoulder and starts singing (ah bah bu bah bu baaaah!) and how she shakes her head as she falls asleep sometimes. I love her so much. Even as she erased half of this post that I had to retype. I am so blessed to be the mommy to such an awesome, amazing, sweet, smart, pretty little girl.